WHEN SUMMER ENDS

Perhaps the saddest day of the year is the day after Labor Day. It marks the end of the endless days of summer that fill us with a casual spirit and relaxing mood. It is the time of bar-b-q chicken and steaks, corn on the cob, ribs, and clams on the half shell, beach, sand, and casual barefooted strolling along a beach. Bicycles and open top cars become the norm as does horseback riding.

As we close up the pool, clean and scrub the bar-b-q and put away the summertime outdoor furniture, we look forward to the visual splendor of autumn and envision the cold winter and the long dreary months of snow and sleet. The echoes of people at play and flashbacks of places visited, still echoing in our minds as we assume a more rigid countenance that is all routine and all business.

The air seems to have a crispness to it even on the hottest of days after Labor Day, the sun casts a shadow just a little different, and little less bright affording you some hope of relief from the heat and humidity of the summer.

Ice cream and beer are no longer the staples of the weekend as some of us become more formalized and return to wine and liquor.

And as we head off to work and join the millions of others who like yourself do not believe the summer has past and life continues as business as usual. The same traffic jams and stop and go traffic, the regular hours and the holiday spirit if summer will not return for a full year.

So sad.